


Childhood II

by kalliel



Series: Childhood [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s09e13 The Purge, F/F, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 09, in the aftermath of the Winchesters, parenting, post-mindwipe, you break everything you touch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 06:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7703731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalliel/pseuds/kalliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lisa winds up in Stillwell, Minnesota because she heard there was a health spa out there, looking to hire a yoga instructor. </p><p>Sheriff Donna Hanscum assures her that the FBI definitely wasn't here six hours ago. There definitely wasn't anything wrong with Stillwell. And Donna definitely isn't afraid to go home alone tonight. It's just that the yoga position that doesn't need to be filled anymore. That's all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Childhood II

If they still had the house, she'd have grounded him. But you can't ground a kid when you're living in your Ford Escape, especially not when your kid's fourteen and way too smart for his own good. (Apparently, fourteen-year olds are really into terrible puns. And you drive a Ford Escape.)

Besides, when you're the one raising your kid in a Ford Escape, because you lost your job and you lost the house and you're pretty sure you're not done losing yet, nothing's your kid's fault anyway.

This is on you.

"Just please, please don't close until I get there. Pl--" says Lisa. Then her phone cuts out, because she's out of minutes. Because she can't pay for any more. So she starts walking.

She'd run, but she's in her interview shoes.

So she walks, on spindly heels through Minnesota street slush, feeling like a bird in a bog. And she doesn't cry.

They crossed Minnesota lines fourteen hours ago. Here's how much Lisa loves the land of 10,000 lakes:

At 9am Lisa is denied welfare. Officially it has to do with her residency but deep down Lisa knows it's her sweater that does it. It's maybe a little too nice to be getting hand-outs from good old Uncle Sam. (But if she'd showed up in anything worse, would they have trusted her?)

At 2pm, in the same sweater, she fucks up a job interview. Maybe she looks a little like she spent four hours at the welfare office and fucking bird-walked as fast as she could and maybe she looks a little like she slept in a Ford Escape last night and the night before that, and two weeks before that. She looks like she'd handed the keys to her fourteen-year old son, told him to park somewhere safe, don't drive too fast, don't get on the freeway. Her fourteen-year old son who'd never driven without her, who shouldn't be driving in the first place, who should have been at school--in the nice school district where their old house was, just outside their gated community, the school with the charter program and the catered lunch. At 2pm he should have been walking home, to their old house, the one with the mortgage Lisa had no hope of paying at any point in her life, ever and went for anyway, because the realtor kept saying schools, schools, schools. And then, of course, it was 2008. But maybe he's wrapping the car around a streetlight right now. Maybe he messed up a roundabout. Maybe he forgot right-of-way. By 2:30pm, maybe she's said "Sorry, can you repeat the question?" ten too many times. Even if it shouldn't matter what she looks like, that's probably a deal-breaker. 

They tell her they'll call her.

"I swear I'm not on drugs," said Lisa, because she knows that look, and that look definitely isn't "hire this woman."

She is on drugs, actually. Just not that kind. At 3pm she fucks up again because Walgreens is a piece of shit and she doesn't--she doesn't really know what's going to happen if she runs out of meds before she can pull it together enough to actually show up with her ID, during business hours, in the right state. 

3:30, she gets off the phone with her sister('s disappointment), and hates the man who T-boned her. She's supposed to have forgiven him, but it's been three years. Maybe she's changed her mind. She was going to lose the house either way, but she's pretty sure starting to see angels every night didn't help. 

At 3:45, Lisa takes her meds at the drinking fountain in the lobby of the health club she won't be working at. She runs the water a little too long out of spite. 

Rebel, Lisa congratulates herself. 

She feels empty. 

Ripped open.

It's 4:30 and already dark when she gets the call. When the sheriff introduces herself Lisa's sure, for forty awful seconds, that Ben is dead. He crashed the car. Maybe he killed someone. Maybe it was a mom and her twelve-year old. Maybe they'll see angels, too.

Then Sheriff Donna Hanscum informs her that her son was caught tagging the underpass (the, as in singular), and that's really pretty frowned upon in Stillwater--prettiest town in all of Washington County, dontcha know. She says it in that Minnesota way that suggests it's not a big deal, don't worry, except it really means it _is_ a big deal, and fuck off. Lisa's heard it from her brother-in-law enough times to know it well.

She'd ground Ben, if she didn't know better. But Lisa knows this is all her fault.

 

\--

 

She's younger than Donna expected. She can't be much older than Donna is, which shakes things into perspective--the emptiness of Donna's own ring finger, her uterus. The gawky teenager sitting in her interview room, with baby fat at his cheeks and rogue spray paint on his hands.

That's an entire teenage boy, Donna thinks. Though she supposes her amazement might be misplaced; they didn't tend to come in other denominations--whole, 1%, 2%, soy.

"Is he okay?" is the first thing the woman asks. She knows he is, it's all been explained to her already, and she understands; but the question is reflex. Like saying "you, too" when your grocer says "have fun with those eggs!" instead of "have a nice day." _Is my son okay?_

Then she asks, "How much is the fine?" 

And when Donna answers: "Shit."

Donna must flinch, because the woman apologizes. She says it's been a long day.

Donna knows what she means. This was supposed to be her week off. But when the FBI shows up and kooky things start happening in town, and a kid ends up dead, it's hard to just go home and steep in a bubble bath. And anyway, Donna's pretty sure she's swearing off spa days for life.

"Look," says the woman. "I can't-- I don't have the money right now. But I can call someone and she'll-- Can I please take him home tonight?"

Donna doesn't have a strong sense of how she comes across to people, except that she's generally likable, they generally smile; and sometimes they think she's stupid. (And of course there's one person who thinks she's fat, and stupid, and worthless. But to heck with him.)

But even as sheriff, people aren't usually scared of her. This woman is.

"We're just passing through," says the woman, of the local address Donna asked for. She knows she's seeming less trustworthy by the minute and it reads on her face, in too-familiar creases. "Look, if I can borrow your phone, maybe--"

"It's fine," says Donna. "Just have him come back tomorrow."

Donna knows 80/20, she will be the one with the smock and the paint roller tomorrow. And that's okay. She gets told often that her sense of justice is round--that is, it rounds up. It's unexacting. She's been told that it's about what matters; she's been told it's sloppy; and that it's too kind to him. _Him_ him. But whatever it is, it's not really about jailing kids who paint on bridges. Not even when it looks like Devil worship.

"Our printer's kind of a slowpoke, if you could give him a sec," Donna says. To fill the silence, she adds, "That's a nice sweater."

The woman looks like she wants to die. Donna knows she should have just asked for her name, but sometimes she worries that it sounds like she's about to book them when she does. And it really is a nice sweater.

The woman avoids eye contact and drums her fingers on the notepad before her, waiting for the printer to do its thing. She traces the outline of an earlier message, its ghostly indentation clear under the harsh station light.

Too late, Donna realizes it's that FBI agent's phone number--the one who told her Doug was a dick. 

He must wield pens like carving knives, to have left his mark so deep.

"This number--" the woman starts. She mouths the numbers like she's trying to taste for their familiarity. But her expression unfocuses, and the spit of the station's Brother printer guides her away from it.

As they watch the processing forms fill the print tray, the woman says, "I hate to ask a favor, but do you know where I can find this? They have a yoga instructorship open."

Donna takes the proffered Post-It note and a chill laces up her back. Because yes, of course it's that spa. This thing is going to haunt her for life, she can already tell.

"I...don't think they're looking anymore. I'm real sorry about that," Donna says, as cherubically as possible. The FBI definitely wasn't here six hours ago. There definitely wasn't anything wrong with Stillwell. And Donna definitely isn't afraid to go home alone tonight. It's just a yoga position that doesn't need to be filled anymore, that's all.

But the look on the woman's face tells her it's the end of the world, and that really doesn't help Donna feel otherwise.

"I'm sorry," says Donna.

"It's not your fault," the woman replies. Donna wants to say "It's not yours, either," but she's from Minnesota. She knows when weird becomes too weird. Most of the time.

So she goes to fetch her tagger--Ben, he'd said. Ben Braeden ma'am. He's the politest hoodlum Donna's ever met. 

He's making a tower out of the sugar packets her interview room. It tumbles when she unlocks the door.

"Your mom's here," says Donna, her head poked in.

"I'm sorry about the paint," Ben says. "I wanna fix that."

And there's something--the amount of apology in the air, her lingering nervousness in the face of the FBI, Donna's not sure. But she gets this intense feeling that things in her town are not all right. There's too much hazing the edges of things, too much she can't explain. There's a loop in her gut and it just doesn't feel right. And the first thing you do when you're sheriff is secure loose ends. 

_I need to protect you,_ she thinks. She just does. Donna's not sure what's out there, but she can't risk any more people in her town tonight.

Forget what she said about the difference between weird and too weird. 

Donna, Sheriff Donna Hanscum, suggests that the two of them come home with her tonight. 

It's the safest option. 

Maybe the woman thinks Donna doesn't trust them--that this is about graffiti in a tunnel--or maybe word of the murders is already out. Maybe the woman feels this wrongness in the air. Whatever the reason, she says yes. Yes, that sounds like a good idea.

Donna knows that's not what it sounds like at all. Come home with the sheriff of some weird northern town with a mystery spa? No thanks. But the only person who'd have taken that offer is someone who'd have offered the same, and that's the kind of person Donna trusts.

 

\--

 

Lisa's only planning to stay a few hours--just long enough for Ben to paint over his mess, which he's insistent about. Someone might touch the sigils, he says, and it's bad if you touch the sigils.

Lisa's not sure why "sigil" is even active vocabulary for her fourteen-year old, but she suspects it has something to do with his video games. The word makes her gut hurt, like a knife in her side.

When Sheriff Hanscum says it's late, and it'd be better to wait until it's light out, it just makes her side ache more. 

Lisa says, "He's never been afraid of the dark."

And she swears the sheriff shudders.

"Look, no offense, but this isn't exactly Fuller Park. And it's 6pm," Lisa adds. Because hey, Lisa's still got some hometown pride, even if her sister doesn't. She and Ben can handle Stillwell, Minnesota.

The sheriff still looks reluctant, and keeps looking reluctant as Ben fills a bucket with trays and rollers, but she doesn't stop him. Maybe she sees what Lisa sees: A fourteen-year old at home in a police station he's only been in for a couple of hours; he knows where the supply closet is because he's used to guessing. He knows what he'll need, to fix his mistakes. And he wants to do it now.

Lisa's not sure when Ben grew up, or what he's growing into, but she kisses him on the top of the head--he's already up to her lips, he's growing so fast--and she tries not to make a big deal about it.

"See you in a couple hours," she says, and squeezes his shoulders.

"Sure thing," says Ben. He tries to wink at her, but it doesn't quite work out. He's gonna have to work on that one.

Lisa chuffs.

After the sheriff locks up and Lisa's riding shotgun in her pickup, her Escape neatly tucked away behind the station, Lisa tries to explain herself.

"It's how I used to decide whether I was gonna get serious with someone, you know," she starts. "Seeing whether they trusted Ben. 'Cause guys who _say_ they're okay with your kid, or they're totally family guys? Dime a dozen. But when Ben was littler, we'd end up at the park--me, Ben, and Joe Cool--and we'd go to the monkey bars. If they guy couldn't let Ben go, or kept freaking out like Ben was gonna fall, then we were done."

The sheriff stays quiet.

"If you can't trust them to get back up when shit goes down--shit, sorry--augh, sorry again--then they can't be yours. You have to trust your kids. They're not, you know--rental cars, or whatever."

"So you never worry about him?" asks the sheriff.

"God no," Lisa answers. "All the time. But I--" Lisa bites her lip. "Sheriff, no offense, but we don't live in a world where anyone's safe. Not 100% of the time. And I can't-- I need to trust him. I need him to know that I trust him."

Lisa stares out at the sparkle of the newer snow under the Stillwell streetlights, stark against the gray underneath. She hopes Ben keeps his coat on this time.

She knows the sheriff doesn't believe her. Hell, maybe she's gonna call CPS the second they hit a phone line, though Lisa doesn't think anything will happen. They haven't hit that floor yet. There are a million things Lisa will do before it gets that bad. Still, she knows what it sounds like. 

Lisa remembers walking to school in the morning with her sister--she nine and Barb a stately seven-and-a-half, and ready to take on the streets of Chicago. They'd had to walk in packs, the whole neighborhood, to show the other blocks they weren't to be toyed with. Some of the boys kept switchblades in their pockets, and some of the girls, too. But there weren't adults until you got to your classroom. At 8am, Dad was long gone, off to work, and Mom hadn't come home yet.

That sort of thing doesn't fly anymore, at least not in gated communities, not at charter schools; not in the lives of the classes Lisa used to teach, or the friends she'd made as Team Mom for the Cicero Screech Owls baseball team. Part of Lisa wants to roll her eyes but a bigger part of her's honestly just glad Ben barely scraped a B in metal shop. He's not out there making shivs and hoarding crowbars.

She can't explain it, though.

She can imagine herself and Ben at the park, guy of the month tagging along. If he holds his hands around Ben's waist all across the monkey bars, it's over. If he looks back at her, like _Is this right? Am I doing it right?_ then it's time to say goodbye, too.

Because those things mean that Ben's not his; Ben's just something he needs to perform, to keep Lisa happy. Ben is first and foremost hers.

 _I need you to trust him,_ Lisa's said a hundred, thousand times. 

_But he's just a kid,_ she's been told, ten thousand times back.

So what happens if you wake up one day, and he's not? Lisa always wants to ask.

Who will he be then?

 

\--

 

She's told Lisa to please just call her Donna about twelve times now. Lisa hasn't actually called her anything yet, but she hopes it'll stick. She doesn't want this to keep feeling like an interrogation. Donna's had actual bonafide prisoners actually on trial who've acted less judged. Though Donna supposes she's not being as helpful as she could be; it's hard to forget the day she's had. And no matter what she keeps saying, she'd really rather be Sheriff Hanscum right now.

"Are you two doing all right?" Donna asks. She's not even sure if it's the sheriff in her or her momma that magicks the words out of her, but she tries with all her might to think of Momma.

"Sometimes kids--they act out when--"

Lisa shrugs. "He's fourteen. Kids do dumb things."

"I'll bet that's a real bucket of fish," says Donna.

Lisa's phone dings. "Shit," Lisa swears. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. --Gosh." Then, under her breath, she mutters something about needing to tell him about the phone minutes. 

"For seven cents a pop, this better be good," she narrates, as she opens the text message.

Lisa snorts.

"What?" Donna ventures.

"Oh, it's nothing," Lisa replies. "No, seriously. It's just--do you have kids?"

Donna's stomach twists. "Not as such," she says.

Lisa's brow furrows, but she doesn't pry. "It's just--I don't know what's happening to me, really. But I just feel like--the older Ben gets, the younger I do. Because like, you look at him, and he's fourteen, and suddenly he's a person, you know? Like, an actual person with things he likes and experiences you'll never have, and like, knowledge to offer. And then you're laughing at dumb fourteen-year old jokes."

"That sounds nice."

"I love him," Lisa agrees. "But every day it makes me feel even more like I have no idea what I'm doing. And I already felt like that when he was still swimming around in me. And I just--I need to treat him like a real person. I know that much. But there's so much shit going on--sorry--where's the line? What's healthy? Where does he get to be Ben Braeden, but still get to be my baby?"

This whole conversation is making Donna hurt, making her yearn. But it's the most alive Lisa's seemed all evening, and at the end of the day, Donna Hanscum is a big, big busybody. So long as it doesn't involve the FBI, she'd like to know what she's missing.

Even if it involves the FBI, she amends. If she's going to be honest with herself.

But this, this is something Donna thinks about all the time. What would it be like, if she and Doug had a two year old waiting at home right now? What would it be like in ten years, when he tagged an underpass? Or fell off the monkey bars?

Who would Donna be, then?

When they get home, Donna does a lickety-split tour of all the major attractions--bathroom, bedroom, kitchen--and starts making up the couch. The last time Donna's had any out-of-town visitors was probably, oh, Doug's sister in from Dallas, to help with the divorce.

Donna's much more inclined to make a nice bed for these people.

She starts fluffing pillows as Lisa opens up the sheets.

"You've got a really good kid in that one," Donna says, to keep the silence at bay. "Did you know he called me ma'am?"

Lisa laughs. "I didn't teach him that."

 

"You must be proud."

"Relieved. Terrified. I don't know if I do 'proud.'"

"What do you mean?"

"You know who you turn into?" Lisa stiffens, letting the sheet float down onto the couch like a ghost. "When suddenly you're pregnant and you're still so young you shouldn't have been in that bar in the first place?" 

She doesn't wait for Donna to answer. "You turn into every single twenty-year old mom. Every single one. Because if you fuck it up, and things go wrong, you're fucking it up for every single one of them."

Lisa twists her fingers into the crochet blanket Donna hands her. "And I don't know what to do with that kind of responsibility. Like, I didn't grow up taking Save the World classes. Most of those girls haven't even been born yet; their _moms_ haven't been born yet. And I'm fucking them out of the starting gate."

"But you're still here. That's all you need to be, right?" Donna suggests.

Lisa laughs, sharp and bitter, and even Donna knows that's bull doogie. If that were true, Donna would still have a husband. If that were true, she wouldn't stare at her Caesarian scars and the look of them wouldn't tear her apart each and every morning.

"Why _are_ we here, anyway?" Lisa asks. There's a rigidity to her shoulders, as though she expects at any moment, Donna will change her mind and tell her that it is time to leave. That at 3am she will take Lisa up and tell her that now it's time to get out.

"Would you believe me if I said it's because I'm afraid of the dark?" Donna says.

No, of course Lisa doesn't believe her.

"We're a small town," Donna tries again. "Suzy at the motel is dead asleep by now, and there's only the one. It's all right, and don't you worry about a thing."

Soon enough, Lisa's in the shower, and Donna's thinking about what might have happened to her if she'd rode into town one day earlier. Would she have been in one of the body bags Donna'd just authorized to the morgue? Would they be stuck here, material witnesses to whatever had just gone down? Donna's never tangled with the FBI before, but she imagines there's a tall order of cleanup involved. Paperwork, interviews, litigation. The FBI doesn't just blow in and out of town, after all. They've probably just themed her entire spring quarter. Every day now, she's going to come into work and she'll have to face what happened out there all over again. And honestly, she's not even sure what did! But that won't mean she's off the hook.

This isn't going away.

Donna sighs.

Well, it's not as though there's much she can do about it tonight, in any case. Tonight, she has Samaritan duties. Tonight, she has guests.

Tonight, she's not alone.

Donna undresses. It'd feel better if she'd turned the heat up a bit more, but it feels good to let her shoulders crest without the touch of starched fabric. Her hands rest for a moment on the red indentation of her bra-line. Then she shrugs the straps from her shoulders. Her belt always chafes against her hips and her slacks make her bum itch at inopportune times, and her socks have that almost moist feeling they get when she's been walking around in the too-toasty station in her winter boots all afternoon.

She wonders if she still has the marks on her back from the cups. Probably not; and she's glad of that.

Donna pulls on something dainty and lacy from the hamper in the closet and wonders if Lisa will judge, her a woman with no more husband and all. Not that Lisa seems to be in any position to judge, but Lisa knows her own story; she doesn't know Donna's. And people can be like that.

Donna sprawls on the bed like a gingerbread man, pillow balanced on her eyes, and tries not to think too much about the FBI. What should she make her guests for breakfast? Something warm and filling, lots of protein probably. Maybe something easy to pack in Zippies, so she can send them away with the leftovers for later, and it won't seem like any old thing.

She hadn't offered dinner, Donna realizes. Here it was 8pm, probably dinner time, but she'd forgotten. 

Donna doesn't usually eat dinner. She'd read in a magazine around New Year's that it wasn't good for your metabolism after 7, and Donna doesn't usually get home until 7, and so that was that, she'd supposed.

"Did you want to eat something with that?" she asks. Lisa's out of the shower, hair tousled but still drippy, towel bound around her in a way that makes Donna wonder how people can make towels look like lingerie. Did you have to practice? Were there specific folds?

Lisa has an Rx bottle in one hand and a handful of pills in the other, which seems like a lot.

She lets them all clatter back.

"It's okay. I already took them," she says distantly.

"Let me get you something to wear, then," Donna suggests, urging brightness into her tone again. If she asks Lisa, _Are you okay?_ she knows it will be too many times. She fights the urge to ask about food again--and again, until Donna insists and Lisa says yes. She's learned that if you're not from around here, that can scare you right off.

Donna imagines most of her nightwear will slip right off Lisa, brown and slim such as she is, so Donna selects a T-shirt she likes, billowy and 3XL and soft in a way she's always wished more shirts were. It might have been from a Rotary Club raffle.

When she hands it to Lisa, she's still chattering away, telling Lisa exactly what she'd just thought to herself, about the raffle and its softness and how it's a bit chilly so this will be good but if she'd like fuzzy socks Donna has some, but Lisa just nods like she's not really listening.

As she swaps the towel for tee, Donna sees the stretch marks radiating from her belly, flat now but still proud of the baby that once grew inside it.

Donna's only marks are from the growing pains of adolescence, around her thighs and breasts. From her baby, she has only the surgical scars--like he'd never grown, just died.

Donna is painfully jealous.

 

\--

 

She doesn't mean to end up in bed with this woman. She really doesn't. But maybe she does, because Lisa's had a lot, a _lot_ of practice going home with people she's just met. And maybe it's been a decade, maybe it hasn't, but apparently it's just like riding a bike.

Some part of Lisa knew that the moment she got in that pickup, she was always gonna end up here.

Not that she thinks Donna invited her home for a one night stand, particularly; but it's Donna who lands the first kiss.

Maybe Lisa scared her with the pills. Some people freak out about that kind of thing.

Lisa's kind of freaking herself out.

She's not sure what she was doing.

But Donna's bed, that's a good thing. Donna's hand on the dip of her waist. Her tangly angel hair as Lisa cards her fingers through it. These are good things.

Donna plants a soft, shy kiss on the tip of Lisa's nose. When Lisa opens her eyes, Donna's still there, whisper close, like she's waiting to see if that was all right. Like she's wishing maybe she'd waited, or asked.

Lisa smiles. She lets her fingers wander down Donna's neck and over the rise of her breasts.

"We were together for fifteen years," Donna murmurs. "Ten before the wedding, five before we decided we wanted--"

Lisa gets the impression Donna might be a promise ring kind of woman.

She really, really hopes Donna isn't doing something she'll regret right now. Maybe she needs a warning label--never been with a man longer than six months. Never made it with a woman longer than four. She's had a few Christmas boyfriends, a few Valentine's dinners, but she and Ben? Every time barbecue season rolls around they're both flying solo.

Donna's hand caresses her stomach. She's not thinking about warning labels.

"He was premature," she says. "We almost lost him driving to the Cities after my water broke."

"He spent three months in an incubator, like a little chick."

"Then MRSA."

"When we finally brought him home, we'd held off on naming him so long I just kept calling him Peanut instead." 

Donna chuckles.

"What was his name?" Lisa asks. No child lives here, and neither does Mr. Fifteen Years; Lisa knows how this story ends. But this baby needs a name.

"Oh, we settled for 'Dean.' I wanted David; Doug wanted Moses, on account of the whole baby in a basket thing--but you can't name a child Moses and I told him so. There I was thinking about recess, and grade school, and bullies--but you know, sometimes you wake up five months later, and your baby's just not breathing. No reason. Just not."

Donna doesn't cry, but it's like her whole body goes icy and dead. Lisa pulls herself closer, until she can hold Donna tight, slide her ankle between Donna's, press her breasts to Donna's gown. She feels their panties slide against each other.

"Is Ben going to be okay?" Donna asks. Lisa squeezes.

"He likes the dark," she answers. But the words sound tacky on her tongue, reluctant. "And he knows curfew's 11."

"But he doesn't know his way around town. It's not home."

"He's--used to that, too."

"Lisa?"

Lisa is crying.

Lisa's crying, and then she can't stop crying. She cries in waterfall heaves. She cries like there's a big, dark reservoir inside her and if she doesn't let it out, she'll drown. It's chasmic emptiness, which hurts so bad if she's not screaming she won't survive it. In this reservoir, there's fire, fire over water, like an oil slick. It burns her eyes until she cries and all she can hear is the rustle of feathers, vultures roosting in the eaves, casting black shadows on a blacker empty. Angels, vultures, angels.

She cries, and cries, and cries, and she and Donna, they hold each other tight.

Something has been ripped out of her. That's the only way she can describe it.

Something has been stolen.

And she feels like maybe, finally, someone knows what she means. Donna knows what she means.

But nothing's been stolen, because _This is your fault. This is all your fault, Lisa. And you have no one to blame but yourself._

You have no one.

 

\--

 

Remember no one.

 

\--

 

In the morning, there's a text from Ben. A whole string of them, actually. Donna watches over Lisa's shoulder as she scrolls through them, Lisa's hair pungent with Donna's shampoo and her waist firm in her arms.

Last night, Ben sent 37 texts filled purely with saucy comments about Donna's living room decor.

"You got a regular little Shakespeare on your hands," Donna jokes.

"Yup, that's me," Lisa agrees. Her toes curl atop the bridge of Donna's left foot. "Me and my 80s hair-band loving, black coffee-drinking, night owl interior decorator Satanist Shakespeare."

Donna kisses Lisa's shoulder, where that mark would have been, if she'd been here one day earlier. If she'd been in one of Donna's body bags. If she'd been at that spa.

They don't talk about last night. Not the sex, not the tears, not the sob stories. It doesn't seem necessary. They'll be back tomorrow night, probably. Maybe every night. But those are stories for another time.

Today is new, the sky is clear, it's above 32, and they've both got work to do.


End file.
